jonbantados

[jonbantados]

All of the gear I have isn’t worth much if I rely on it more than I rely on myself.

Mike Vardy, from his latest edition of The Productivityist Newsletter (via minimalmac)

[jonbantados]

Wearable Technology

So we were talking about wearable technology today. The combination of fashion and electronics, although I think it's a bit more complex than sewing a laptop onto your shirt and playing WoW on it in the middle of a bus station. Cool, but not what we want to get at. The ability to get controllers to talk to each other and collectively interact with human gesture brings about a whole new meaning to wearable technology.

Important Issues:

sewing and programming

The more pins called, the slower the interaction

Floating pin: unstable pin: use a 10k resistor

3 volt logic

Noise

Materials:

Silk Organza

Light sensitive resistors

[jonbantados]

Acoustics

Using the body to express sound and music

Sound as an input.

threshold

timbre - fast fourier transform

time - clock/beat tracking

pattern recognition

check out these kids: Halle Robot Drummer prototype, The Pencil Project, Max Matthews, NIME**, ICMC

Sound as output

switch files

speed

filtering

specialization

problems: pre-rendered pre-programmed

Genertive

Synthesis of individual sounds

Algorithmic composition

Source Manipulation

filters

modulators

soft circuits

[jonbantados]

Maxing out

So my prof asked our group to go a bit further in our first sketch by using the cv.jit.undergrad function. Combining that with a 3 layer mask, all done within one week. Yup I'd say that's a pretty good achievement. It's a little laggy, but I think does a pretty good job. Gonna refine, go home and sleep easy.

[jonbantados]

Is it all just numbers?

In Max

it is hard to give particles a lot of agency

max deals poorly with particles BUT allows you to make very complex interactions - emergent play

Sketch 1

focus on the quality of gestures

reflecting on the experience of embodiment

Does the quality of motion = math?

any digital signal comes from a transducer that changes something physical and turns it into a form of energy e.g microphone air pressure to voltage

Sample Rate (time) and Quantile (value)

taking continuous and transforming it into numbers - from there on it's just math

Digital crossfade

Vid_A * x = Vid_C

Vid_B * 1-x = Vid D

Notes - go back to trig

inverting images to create masks

Interaction and Trigonomotry

movement doesn't happen only on the X axis (kinnect = 3d)

Pythagoras! a2 + b2 = c2

sin = opposite/hypotenuse

cos = adjacent/hypotenuse

tan = opposite/adjacent

converting radians to pie - * 180, then / 3.14

Power of Average

Event Average - ie. averaging grades (you know how many events there were)

Weighted Average - ie. making core courses count more (multiply by fractions)

Windowed Average - take events within a certain time frame

Averaging filter - a.k.a low pass filter

Question of the day: Can i write a program that captures the intention?

Reflection

Lots of math today. I hate math. But. I have to say that I can start to see the connection between my coding and which algorithms and formula I have to use in order to get the interactions I want. Will need to open my old math textbooks now, ugh. At least I can look forward to improving my max patches =D

End Note.

Mac is fixed. I am poor.

[jonbantados]

Post-Post-Human

Merging design and art.

Important kids: Myron Kruger, Klaus Obermaler (Apparition), Zack simpson (Marble Marshall)

Post-Human - Humans bringing in technology - Cyborgs???

Post-Post-Human - Bringing the human back into technology - Neo???

Types of Gestures:

Iconic - the gesture associated with the intended expression or task

Metaphoric - the gesture is associated with the intended expression or task through a metaphor

Mechanical - the connection between the intended expression or task and the gesture

Qualities of Motion:

Flick 

Punch

Dab

Slash

Float

Elements: Space, Time, Weight, Flow

What are we gonna get our systems to track? What are we gonna get them to do" - Greg

Markers:

Active Markers: markers that transmit a unique ID

Passive Markers: markers that have no unique ID

Markerless: Tracking that does not rely on markers

But is there a way we can use the same movements and have them mean different things? (like clicking a million times on that sheep in Warcraft until it explodes)

We need these gestures to gather data in order to get a viable response. If we don't have a response our systems won't be able to do anything. In other words don't be like Kirsten Stewart (a.k.a Bella in Twilight).

Question of the day:

Aren't gestures a specific form of position tracking except they only track one specific position of a particular body part as opposed to the whole?

Finishing notes:

Macbook is still in repair shop and sketch 1 is due in 1.5 weeks. I am sad =(.

[jonbantados]

Defamiliarizing

What we discussed in class last week.

Perception and knowledge is messy.

Ready at hand - its working (e.g hammer) - use without rational process)

present at hand - all the possibilities (concerned only with the bare facts of a thing or a concept) - what is this object and where does it fit in my life?

familiarizing

quality of experiences - awareness

Can we use semiotics to disembody ourselves from technology? From a design perspective, can we become more aware of things by taking the "this is not a pipe" approach?

So my macbook is in the repair shop so my blogging will be a bit delayed/ so my apologies in advance.

[jonbantados]

"I think therefore I am" - Descartes

[jonbantados]

Show Vs. Telling

Greg talked about showing vs. telling in lab the other day. Found a really cool video that plays on this method.